Endless
by devilishlysas
Summary: Sylar/Claire, an end of the world Future fic. 'Time makes monsters of us all, some just hide it better.' Disclaimer: I don't own heroes or any of the characters, I just like to pretend.


Endless – by devilishlysas

The vast ship lifted skywards, in a blast of heat and air, unnoticed and uncared for by the inhabitants, but she couldn't help but look up. Stopping she watched as the masterpiece of human science and technological drive disappeared into the sky and vanished. No matter how many times she saw it, it never failed to amaze. It was Noah's ark, for humanity instead of animals, and the flood was not water, but radiation, sunlight itself. It would be her turn soon, she had delayed far too long already, and those that surrounded her had begun to notice. Her long life had always been this way, always protected, adored, surrounded. And so completely alone. A familiar presence, cool and precise flickered within the base of her skull, pressing insistent as always. After all this time, he was still there, waiting, watching. For all his power he had never been able to adapt. Never been able to move through time as she had, to let it wash over her, change her, renew her. With a few short words she dismissed them, her sycophants, her 'friends', her hanger's on, her employees, fans. A thousand lifetimes, a thousand Claire's, different names, but the same face, buried throughout human history. Buried no more, discovered, embraced, adored, worshipped even. The old Claire, so long ago, the blonde pretty innocent cheerleader would have been lost here, could never accept their blind devotion, could never do what was necessary to survive to see the end of the world. Not as she had long ago feared, at the hands of some misguided human with abilities, or a power mad politician, or religious fanatic. Time... it destroyed everything. The Earth's temperature had increased ever so slightly, but that was all it had taken. Just nature. Nothing sinister, and the Earth was going to die. Baked and boiled.

She turned away from the ships, rising skywards, fleeing, into the cool darkness of space. They would wait for her. That statement alone was almost too much to bare. She didn't want them to wait. In fact she half wanted them to leave her here, to leave her to this hot arid, dusty world. To leave was to accept what she was, to accept what she would always be... immortal, unchanged, living history. For them, for humanity that was enough, they could leave Earth, but they could take it forever with them in her. They would die, forget, move ever onwards into the vast blackness, to a new home. But she couldn't. She wrapped the soft material of her gown around her, finding the endless reams and folds soothing as they kept her from the world and she returned to the site she had demanded to see one last time.

There was no need for surprise, no need to jump when his hands brushed over her shoulders. His lips brushed her temple and placed a tender kiss. Once she would have flinched, retched at the notion. But as her gaze remained on the spot her home had once stood, in what remained of Odessa Texas, changed completely, and just as desolate now as when her home had been obliterated by a man with glowing hands. Her second home would have fared no better in what had once been Costa Verda. So many buildings had been stripped, all of the Earth's dwindling resources scavenged to built the vast ships. The Earth was a wasteland, stripped bare and left to burn. His hands slid around her waist and pulled her tightly back against his hard chest, enveloping her tiny forever teenage frame within his larger one. e His head brushed hers and he inhaled deeply, taking in her scent, she wondered if that had changed, his indulgent sigh suggested not.

"I've missed you Claire-bear." He breathed, dropping his mouth to the skin on her neck and sucking gently on the delicate skin there as if he'd always done so. A small smile played at the corner of her lips at the memories that name brought back, some pleasant most not, particularly when connected with the man behind her. His hands skimmed down her sides, simply savouring the touch of her, she realised dimly that she could understand his sentiments. They were all that remained, whatever had happened in the past, it paled into insignificance now. He pressed closer to her, seemingly unwilling to have an inch of himself out of contact with her. Had her entourage been present he would have been floored, and contained within seconds, for so much as looking at her. He hadn't been able to get within a mile of her for centuries, even her mind had been closed to him within her vast walls. Whilst she was revered he was reviled. As it should be she mused. The monster revealed in all his glory, yet it didn't change the fact that they were yin and yang, an angel and demon cast amongst the vastness of humanity for its entire span of history. When she had pardoned his crimes that had been an outcry. When she had revoked the ban on his presence within cities there had been protests. When she had removed the restrictions on his movements they had sent in the councillors. But for all their fear of him, their hatred, he was like her, special. Humanities evolutionary blips had been just that... blips, never repeated, lost, to the annals of history, except in them. And so he was reviled and honoured, protected and contained all at once. Never given access like she had been, never embraced, but maintained non-the-less.

He turned her in his arms, bringing his hands up to her face, cupping it gently. She hadn't expected him to be gentle with her, not after hundreds of years of persecution and imprisonment at her hands. It had been a gilded cage, there had been no walls, but still it had been a cage, because he was not free to act... to kill, to reach her. When she had announced he would join humanity on their exodus, it had been expected. When she had announced he would join her vessel there was silence. She couldn't read minds, not even close, but she had become an excellent study in human mannerisms, behaviour, and psychology, she didn't need to hear what they were thinking to know it. They believed and still did that the idea of leaving Earth, had fractured her mind somehow, that after all this time, she had finally shown a weakness, a chink in her armour. Perhaps she had. But it seemed they were willing to forgive her it, her request was unchallenged.

"Why?" he breathed his lips so close to hers they brushed as he spoke. She met his eyes, dark midnight pools that contrasted so sharply with her green that she blinked; the memory of his face had been perfect in her mind's eye, thanks to her relentless ability.

"I couldn't leave you here." She replied simply, staring back and daring him to call her on it.

His face seemed to spasm, a suppressed flicker of emotion he refused to let register, as his grip tightened slightly. "I didn't think I'd be this close to you again." He replied finally, his large hand holding her waist firmly, whilst his other slid up around her throat and squeezed.

Perhaps he expected surprise to register on her face, it didn't. His eyes scanned the area, no doubt his mind reached out too. Nothing, no one. No bodyguards, no sentries or drones, no mobs. No one came.

"Still got a death wish Princess." He chided, it wasn't a question, as he tightened his grip around her throat, lifting her off the floor. He raised her until her face was level with his. "So after all this time, this is your plan. I kill you, here where it all started, and doom myself." He smiled coolly at her, "Because those ships won't wait for me." Her face revealed nothing and he lowered her back to the floor and reduced the intensity of his grip from bruising to feather-light.

"We don't belong on those ships Sylar." A name only she knew, only she remembered, to the rest of the world he was forever Gabriel Grey, her final punishment. She could see from the way his body tensed that just hearing his chosen name, the name he had used to terrorise coming from her lips after so long, excited him.

"They won't let you go will they Princess." He tutted, brushing his thumb across her cheek and her golden skin, one of the greatest clues to her age in a world where skin tone was almost universally dark, to match the sheer power of the sun's rays. She was a glowing beacon of a world that was, a living memory. "They can't bear to part with you, won't let you stay and watch the world you hate so much, burn." Her eyes widened, he was no telepath, she knew it wasn't an ability he had obtained, but it seemed he was the only person who could understand her, still. "I'm the only one left that knows you, knows the world should be rid of you." He whispered, pressing a kiss to her ear as he spoke, his hands tangling in ever long, ever golden hair.

"Sylar." She spoke and he pressed a finger to her lips, the only person in the world that didn't hang on her every breath.

"I won't be labelled the monster by you again for the rest of human history." He spat, fury making his hands glow and singe her skin. "If I kill you, I will be, it doesn't matter what you are, the things you've done, they won't remember, they don't. All they will see is their precious Claire, slain, by the monster she released, the monster she decreed must be allowed to leave this rock, must be saved with the rest." He pulled her sharply against his chest, dominating her.

"You won't get any sympathy from me." She replied just as sharply, her eyes colder than anyone in the world, except him, knew they could become.

"Nor would I expect any." He sneered, hatred radiating from him. The stood glaring at each other, immovable.

"I could have been a good man!" He broke first, shaking her violently in his arms. "Why did you do this to me?" he bellowed slamming a fist into her face with pure animal savagery; that snapped her jaw. She almost wished she could feel the pain of it, even as she slid it back into place, and it healed flawlessly; but she had come to accept the prison of her own body long ago. "No one knew me, they didn't have to. I could have been forgotten, been nobody, faded into the background!" he was sobbing now, raining blows to her midriff that left her breathless. He grabbed her and hurled her to the floor, taking her by her hair and slamming her head back against the stone ground until she blacked out. She opened her eyes to find him sobbing quietly his head buried against her stomach, "I hate you." He croaked, over and over, like a litany to himself. Hesitantly she lifted her hand and lowered it gently into his thick dark hair, his trembling doubled at her touch, but he didn't pull away.

"Because I was selfish." His head rose, and his dark pain filled eyes met her cool green unforgiving ones. "No matter what they do to me, however they treat me, I can't feel anything, can't connect, can't forget." She finished quietly. "I couldn't let you forget either." Her hand fisted in his hair, forcing his eyes to stay on hers, however minimally, and only because he let her. "I couldn't let them raise me up as this..." she paused unable to even speak the words.

"Goddess." He supplied, all bit spitting the word at her, his voice reminding her that to him she couldn't be further from.

She nodded. "Not without keeping something of the old me, the real me, alive. I needed someone to remember, to feel something honest. Someone who's eyes I could look into and not see the lie."

"Me." He shuddered, pulling away from her, and sitting down on the floor, in the hot dirt, his arms resting over his knees, his head bowed, defeated. Claire straightened up and looked at him curiously.

"Yes."

"You're a monster." He croaked; with the same fierce belief she had once hurled the same words at him.

"Then I guess you got your wish." She replied waspishly. Perhaps it was petty to still be holding on so long to a grudge like this. Given the world was dying. But her memories were all she had to hold her to the rest of humanity, the memory of how she used to hurt, how she used to feel.

His eyes flashed, the spark of the old Sylar rising in them, before it faded once more. "I should never have taken your ability." He admitted finally, surprising her. She'd had no idea he regretted it, even now she had always assumed he would still want to be alive. He looked her straight in the eyes. "I don't have the heart for immortality." He grinned at her, forcing her stomach to clench in a way it hadn't in centuries. "Mine's not made of stone." He had meant it to sting, and it had, coming from him, it most definitely had. Pain... it was sharp enough that she could almost imagine he'd hit her and she clung to it desperately. Launching herself forwards into him, so that she straddled him as he collapsed back against the ground.

"You stole my ability, you tore it from me, you broke into my home, terrorized me. I never asked you, you did this to yourself Sylar. I was born this way, I never asked for it, can't be blamed for it. But you..." she grinned darkly at him, not needing to elaborate. He shoved her without ever touching her, sending her flying away from him, whilst he pulled himself up into a crouched position.

"How long will you make me suffer for that mistake? I have paid for my crimes a hundred times over... even you must see that!" He snarled, visibly shaking with uncontrolled rage and grief.

"I'm still alive, still dead to the world." She replied back smoothly. "You created me Sylar. You made me this way. I am your greatest crime, and you haven't even begun to pay for that."

He stilled, looking shocked, for the first time she dared to hope that maybe she had reached him.

"You want to atone for what you have done. To be released; forgiven." She continued mercilessly. "The world won't give you that. Never. I've made sure of it." She stood gracefully, not taking her eyes off him. "But if you do this, for me. If you help me now, if you force them to let go of the past, to let go of us." She inched closer to him, seeing his hands twitch with the need to tear her limb from limb if she touched him. "I'll forgive you."

He climbed to his feet. "Not good enough." He snapped, raising a hand to silence her with his ability, whilst he seemed to pull himself together, stalking towards her once more and visibly straightening to his full height... which was tall, at least to her. "Your right, I don't want to live, I don't want to go on living, not out there. Not with them." He admitted looking deeply unhappy to be admitting that much. "But your forgiveness is nothing... if you're dead." Claire raised an eyebrow, staring at him with renewed interest.

"And nor is mine." He added bluntly, daring her to protest that she even wanted it. He released her vocal chords and stepped back so they're were again close enough to touch.

"What is it you want Sylar?" She sighed, submitting to the weariness that she felt deep inside, that had nothing to do with her body.

"Stay here, with me." Claire just stared back at him, memorising his features afresh, as surprised as always to find nothing to dislike in them, those strong dark, Italian lines gave him character and menace all at once, she liked his face. In this world of near perfect bone structure, of fads that remained with children forever, engraved in their genetic makeup and expressed in their faces and bodies to the world, a reflection of their parent's foolishness. He was a refreshing change, flawed and yet perfect because of it.

"They would never leave me." She responded finally, but it wasn't the 'no' he had been expecting.

"They would if they thought you were dead." He added after a moment's thought. Claire waited for his explanation.

"My abilities, although you have had them suppressed for centuries, are back, in full force." He told her, unable to keep the pride from his voice.

"I noticed."

"Not just the more recent abilities, but the abilities I thought I'd lost all those years ago after the company took me the first time." She waited patiently, knowing he would get to it eventually, patience was something she had acquired like a bad habit over the years. "I can make them believe you are dead, wholly and utterly. They have no idea I have such an ability, no one does, because you never saw it used, never told them. They won't expect it, won't be able to see through it."

Claire considered him, and then she cast her eyes out over the hot, cracking Earth before her.

"Even we can't survive the death of the Earth Claire." He may as well have read her mind.

"So we would what?" she questioned him now. "Live, here, together, alone. Waiting for the world to die and take us with it?"

"Yes." Sylar replied simply, shrugging.

Claire ran her hand through her hair, a nervous gesture she hadn't used in years, and glanced over at the great ship that sat patiently waiting for her return, so it could follow the others, out into space.

"We don't belong with them." She reiterated her point; it was the one thing she was certain of.

"No. We're both monsters." He told her pointedly. "And we both deserve to burn for our crimes."

Claire didn't dare look at him, but she felt tears leak down over her cheeks. Raising her hand she pulled it away wet, and stared down at it, stunned, she thought she'd lost the ability to cry. "I'm not what they think I am; I can't take the lie. Can't be what they want me to be, need me to be." She admitted unable to stop the flood of tears. Slowly she raised her head to meet his dark eyes, he understood her. It was why they were here, why she had done all this to him, to herself. It was the reason he had tried to do the same to her so long ago. She nodded.

---*---

They had found the bodies, lying together, in the site that she had once called home, 2200 years ago. Her head was severed from her body, her brain removed and missing. A hand held weapon; that they found still clutched in his cold hand had obliterated most of his top half. There was no bringing either of them back. Their grief had been terrible, and it spread from ship to ship, relayed through the dead space between vessels. Her last will and testament had been broadcast across the vastness of space, carried to them all.

_"I have lived a long life. So much longer than any human being has a right to live. I have seen and done so much, and yet somehow I am constantly amazed by humanity. By what it can accomplish. By its cruelty and its compassion; of the duality that exists within us all; Gabriel and I are that duality, both saint and sinner. Both forced to forever live with the torment of our existence. To never change; to never grow as humanity has, or to become more than we once were. You do not need me to guide you, nor Gabriel to remind you. We have no place in this new world you will make and that can only be a good thing. It is our wish to remain, to be buried here, where it began for us both. To rest with the Earth that has held onto us for so long. Forgive us for lacking your courage to face the unknown, to step out and forge a new and better world." _

They buried the bodies, side by side, and erected two simple headstones, that held their names, no dates. A small monument, a stone, placed above both of them carved with the final words of her will was left in place.

Claire watched the ship, blasting into the atmosphere, the dust of the dying Earth swirling in its wake. Sylar's hand slipped into hers and he raised his head, watching it leave. When she finally tore her eyes away she found he was watching her intently instead. He squeezed her hand and she nodded, it was done. She glanced across at the simple monument they had left, she was surprised they had done the same for Sylar, granted she had requested it, but they didn't have to follow through with it. Sylar stood beside her as they took in their grave.

"Almost seems a shame to waste it." He noted finally, sliding an arm around her slight shoulders. Claire looked up at him, tearing her eyes away from the proof that she was finally free. He lowered his head and hesitantly his lips brushed hers, she didn't stop him. He pulled back, and a half smile flickered over his face, in response to her own.

"Shall we?" He asked tugging gently on her hand as he began to walk away.

Claire smiled, chuckling mildly at the irony of it. "We shall."


End file.
